if youu don't want to read all of this i under stand but do read the last question (#4) MOST IMPORTANT#1: i bottle feed a doe kid now she screams (sort of more like a REALLY loud maaaaaaa) she starts 3 hours before evening feed time and in the mornig went she thinks she should have a bottle. she has been weaned for over 2 1/2 months. do they all do this or did i pick the wrong goat to bottle feed? #2: last year at the fair my doe kid got grand champ. kid. this year with and udder and all she got second to last. is there some thing i did wrong? her udder was not huge (being her first time) maybe 3/4+++ gallon size (if you know what i mean) but the judge said that she had a "cup in her udder" what she meant is that where the udder is attached in the front the accually udder over laps this part making a squished C kinda shape. is there any way she'll grow out of this or am i stuck? #3 my doe (another one) use to give a gallon when her kid was there and i put them in seperate pens put then i sold the kid and she is giving a quart a milking time. i milk her 2 times a day. her udder is never full in the morning or in the evening. i want to keep her with a udder for a show in Aug. should i just keep going the way i am. #4 MOST IMPORTANT we noticed that about 2 weeks ago that 1 doe was getting skinner so we though worms no problem. we gave her wormer. then still skinner so new kinda wormer we would wait a week or so then try a new one till we had tryed 3 wormers then on sunday eve. i noticed a big problem she didn't come to eat i found her a long way back in the pasture with a lost look in her eyes. i had some grain with me so i gave her a handfull she got 2 big bites in her mouth and then let it slowly leek out. i would have taken her to the vet then and there but it was a sunday and my dad was in a nother state by then and wouldn't be back till the next weekend. so i had to do nothing. she then started walking slowly back to the barn then she ignored the others layed in the barn (when she usually layes outside) on monday morning i was in a hurry at milking time to go to work and didn't pay any attention to the others that weren't in line to get milked. mon eve i didn't get home till 9:00p.m. and still had to get ready for work the next morn and take a shower(was at cross-country practice) so i thought i'd feed them in the morning. her twins were on the stair case on tuesday morn when i went out to feed at 6:00 so i knew there was a big problem. she was dead. we got her taken care of but what was the reason she died? Her kid are 3+ months old so no problem there. but i saw them nursing on sun eve while she was laying down. (that was a funny sight kids nursing on a laying down mom) R our other goats in trouble? this goat was no bred or anything (luckly) all the other goats are a on the fat side or normal. except one she looks ok and acks normal she isn't half as skinny as the other one is it just a matter of time Are we in big trouble with a disease?

-- lindsey in southern IL (l_shamhart@hotmail.com), July 10, 2001

Answers

#1 there are bloodlines of does in Nubians who are screamers. They hollar when they think it is milking time, they hollar when you wean their kids, they hollar when you leave them to show another doe, and they hollar when they are in heat (a good thing:) So if you don't love this hollarer than don't continue the bloodline, because her daughers will be like this also.

#2 That is called the curse of the junior champion! Many Many of them never go on to win another thing. If you are buying show stock, purchase milkers who then don't have 35 points out of 100 hidden! Look at your score card. 35 points out of 100 is udder in a milker. 0 points in a kid, well other than she has to have 2 functioning teats. With a weak fore udder, she right off the bat has lost the whole 5 points. This is called a pocket on your doe and no it will not get better it will get worse. You would want to be using a buck on her that has daughters and a dam with a code 1 foreudder. Since her foreudder is bad, she also would have lost most of her 13 points in medial suspensory ligiment, the rubberband going down the middle of the udder which supports it, and is not supportive in the front of your does udder. She is fine for a family milker but not a show animal.

#3 Just keep milking her. Sometimes does only milk gangbusters for 3 months, then they deplete in milk down to a normal amount, though 2 quarts a day is low, 3 quarts is normal for most first fresheners, though you would expect most does to milk 4 quarts for at least 5 or 6 months then deplete down to 3 quarts for the rest of the 10 months in milk. This is where keeping them in milk and buying does who are used to staying in milk is important, can't show a doe who is used to drying up after weaning her kids! You will have to about a week before the show, not milk the night milking and see what she looks like with perhaps 17 or 18 hours of milk in her. Don't do this more than once or it may dry her up in August!! Make sure the does have shade, and plenty of clean water. If she doesn't look good with 17 hours of milk in her, than you may have to take her to the show having missed 2 whole milkings, plus the morning of the show. Do not take her with her teats cold, from non milking. And lots of us use the last show of the year to start drying our does up. Milk her out as soon as the show is over, and don't bother stressing her like this if her udder isn't show worthy, you can still show her in showmanship without a good udder!

#4 Not a clue, but 3 different wormers? This isn't how you worm. You can't see any worms in a does poop except tape worms. You could have had worm problems, not wormed with the right wormer, or with to little, then used another wormer, ruined the bacteria in her gut with more meds, and a goat not chewing her cud is a dead goat. We also first get a fecal sample if a doe is in trouble, and treat her with probios. Always take her temp. Goatworld.com has a 911 site. Lots of goatbreeders all over the US are on their for you to call in emergencies like this. You would already be seeing problems if you had a disease going through the herd. You need to learn a good deworming program, check your nutrition, understand the importance of good hay, having a few meds around and taking temps. There is alot of pnemonia going around with all the wet weather folks are having. Your does nursing kids who are 3+ months old, need lots of grain for energy to continue nursing and not strip their body reserves off and become skinny. You can also ask questions over at Goatworld.com they have a message forum for just goat questions. And always feel free to mail me if you need me. What are are you in and do you have a good local goat mentor? Goat clubs are all over also, what about the folks you show with? Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), July 11, 2001.

Lindsey, Sorry about your loss. I have no idea about your doe. I do know when we bought our first nubian doe several years ago the breeded told us that nubians are cry babies and I have found that to be true some worse than others. If you love that breed you can just deal with it. I have never heard of bleating being carried on in the gens but I'm not an expert. Best of luck. Linda in Indy

-- Linda in Indy (peacefulvalley3@yahoo.com), July 11, 2001.

Vicki you are very right about the screaming. #1 her mom is (was) the worst but not any more we got so sick of it she found a new home where they don't care how much the scream and she was part nubain. we have several nubains and none of them ever "talk" except when some thing is really wrong. #2 i really don't want to sound stupid but here we are about the only goat raisers, breders, ect. that have them for the fun and the business side and not for their grand-kids to show at the fair. the kids don't see thier fair animals but a couple times a year, and at the fair. They get the prizes and the money. (their is a lot of that but i won't get into that subject). so their is no pne here to explain it or to ask. I have never heard of a score card and the whole point thing could you please explain it simply? it sound's pretty interesting. #3no commints here but sounds good to me. i have to brag here this doe got grand champion goat at the fair and it is the only one i own dad own's all of the rest but i take care of them through the week. that is why we are taking her in another fair in Aug. #4 we do have a regular worming cycle but we decided we better go out of turn for this doe and get her done earlier. we feed alflafa (sp) hay to them all winter long in the round bales and some in the summer. they have many aceres (sp) to roam around on and they especially love the wood half. but they also have a large pasture and we are planing to move the fence on the week end so they don't eat the wood down to much. don't worry thouh we are putting them in a nother brushy spot with the same moving space. I don't think that nutrition is a problem and we feed them 3 gallons of a corn and sweet feed mixture every night. we have 7 big goats and 5 little ones (we have been majorly clean house and selling a lot trying to go purebred) and a very old (20 years about) mary-go-round pony that we rescued. Does this nution plan sound good to you? Is this the right amount of grain? i was kind of worryied cause this is the first grown up goat that has every died here and we have been raising goats for 3 years.

-- lindsey in southern IL (l_shamhart@hotmail.com), July 12, 2001.

Hi Lindsey, that is what we have found in our herd also, though most of my Nubians are louder than the Lamancha's we had, we did and do have a bloodline that are very loud. They will talk given any reason at all! And yes it could drive a normal person crazy!

I thought that since you were showing a dairy goat that you were being judged by a scorecard. We show at ADGA sanctioned shows, and even when we did put on county 4H shows we had offical judges, otherwise, a judge would be judging the animal like a meat sheep. A funny story, my eldest daughter was going to another county to show and we ahead of time knew that this little show would give us a cattle judge. She shaved up some of my does, instead of hers, and took them an won. Let's just say that my old bloodlines are not the most dairy looking does around, big ole bulldozers, where her lines were very much bred for scorecard. I would be happy to send you a score card for you to study, in fact privately send me your address and I will send you my old 2000 ADGA membership information, score card, body parts sheet and you can study this, perhaps hitting a show just to watch the kids in showmanship. There are 3 goat clubs in your state, which would be a great place for you to learn from. A more balanced diet, corn and sweetfeed, are fine to just grow goats, but to compete, if that is what you choose to do, intails a little bit more than that. Though it is great you have access to great hay! Good luck with your goat venture, both my daughters dispersed their breeding stock and used the money to go to college. Showing with my daughters made us very close and we have a very good relationship even though they are young adults (usually not a good mother daughter time ;) vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), July 12, 2001.

I debated replying to this but it may be of some help. When I was younger my father used to give the cattle a "cgarette" if they appeared to be losing weight. I remembered this last summer when my little pigmy started losing weight as well so I started giving her a cigarette at least once a month. Believe me totally, it worked. She is now pregnant as well as super fat. So fat that after the kids are weined, if she hasn't lost weight she's going on a diet.

-- Becky Thoms (bvcon@bwsys.net), September 07, 2001.